ng white beard, they
burst out with weeping tears, and cried, saying, God save thee, good Dr.
Taylor! Jesus Christ strengthen thee, and help thee! the Holy Ghost
comfort thee! with such other like good wishes.

When he had prayed, he went to the stake and kissed it, and set himself
into a pitch barrel, which they had put for him to stand in, and stood
with his back upright against the stake, with his hands folded together,
and his eyes towards heaven, and continually prayed.

They then bound him with the chains, and having set up the fagots, one
Warwick cruelly cast a fagot at him which struck him on his head, and
cut his face, so that the blood ran down. Then said Dr. Taylor, O
friend, I have harm enough, what needed that?

Sir John Shelton standing by, as Dr. Taylor was speaking, and saying the
psalm Miserere in English, struck him on the lips: You knave, said he,
speak Latin: I will make thee. At last they kindled the fire; and Dr.
Taylor holding up both his hands, calling upon God, and said, Merciful
Father of heaven! for Jesus Christ, my Saviour's sake, receive my soul
into thy hands! So he stood still without either crying or moving, with
his hands folded together, till Soyce, with a halberd struck him on the
head till his brains fell out, and the corpse fell down into the fire.

Thus rendered up this man of God his blessed soul into the hands of his
merciful Father, and to his most dear Saviour Jesus Christ, whom he most
entirely loved, faithfully and earnestly preached, obediently followed
in living, and constantly glorified in death.

_Martyrdom of Tomkins, Pygot, Knight, Lawrence, Hunter, and Higbed._

Thomas Tomkins was by trade a weaver in Shoreditch, till he was summoned
before the inhuman Bonner, and confined with many others, who renounced
the errors of popery, in a prison in that tyrant's house at Fulham.

Under his confinement, he was treated by the bishop not only unbecoming
a prelate, but even a man; for the savage, because Tomkins would not
assent to the doctrine of transubstantiation, bruised him in the face,
and plucked off the greatest part of the hair of his beard.

On another occasion, this scandal to humanity, in the presence of many
who came to visit at Fulham, took this poor honest man by the fingers,
and held his hand directly over the flame of a wax candle having three
or four wicks, supposing that, being terrified by the smart and pain of
the fire, he would leave off the defence o